Friday, May 27, 2016

An Avenger, (torpedo bomber) missing since 1944, was recently located in the waters surrounding the Pacific Island nation of Palau

The Air Force Heritage Flight Foundation founder and chairman Dan Friedkin finances ongoing search and discovery of MIA, at the families request, and scattered among and concealed within the dense mangrove forests, lagoon waters and coral reefs of Palau’s island chain are several dozen U.S. aircraft and the remains of as many as 80 U.S. airmen.

"We have identified 100 cases worldwide that are suitable for recovery and over 200 families have reached out asking for help with MIAs," he said. This case took two months of towing side scan sonar.

“The importance of our mission is reinforced with each new discovery of a missing aircraft," said Eric Terrill, an oceanographer from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego, one of Project RECOVER's three founding entities.

Project RECOVER’s goal is finding the final underwater resting places of all Americans missing in action since World War II.

Established in 2012 with initial support from the Office of Naval Research and now private funding, Project RECOVER is a partnership among researchers at the University of Delaware’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego, and the BentProp Project.